Second Chances
by Vortex2018
Summary: Post-"Journey's End." Fed up with being a Time Lord fall-back girl, Rose decides to move on as best she can in a world that isn't hers. Still carrying the feelings of his previous two incarnations, the Duplicate Tenth Doctor wants to prove that he's the same man, yet has changed in the ways that count. Are there such things as second chances?
1. It's Been One Week

Author's notes: Yet another "Journey's End" fic, I know. However, this is for the people who, like me, are getting sick and tired of reading how Rose is a cow, that Tentoo's the Valeyard, or that they just jump into bed together and go at it like rabbits. This story does _not_ feature sexist crap, i.e., Rose or the companions as pushovers or whiny, so if that's your thing, move on. That said, it is often NOT Tenth Doctor friendly, and I treat Tentoo and Ten as separate incarnations. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 1: It's Been One Week**

Rose Tyler, Defender of the Multiverse, irritably slammed a pillow over her head, muffling the echoes of happy, boisterous laughter of three humans and a half-alien from the downstairs dining room. All she wanted was to sleep and forget the heavy tiredness that had plagued her for the past week. One week since they returned from Bad Wolf Bay, one week since the walls of reality closed and she was left like yesterday's rubbish by the Oncoming Storm and his newly-created _equal_.

 _Stop bein' such a cow! He left you 'imself. Isn't that what you wanted?_ enjoined her mother's voice.

 _Yeah, what a prize_ , she thought. _He left us in another universe with another rude-and-not-ginger regeneration to take care of, or at least until he fucks off in 'is new TARDIS. How could I_ possibly _pass that up?_ Rose rolled over onto her back and stared blankly at the ceiling, silently envying the scattered, screaming souls who had loved and lost. The mechanical creaking and whooshing of a departed blue box had numbed and desensitized her like surgical anesthetic, for even a week later, it properly did the job of numbing the pain of being abandoned on the rocky, semi-frozen beach of her nightmares.

 _Suppose I should be grateful for not bein' left eight-hundred quid in debt in addition to a broken heart_ , she quipped as she turned over for the second time in five minutes. Her nose wrinkled at the week-old stench of body odor, adrenline and anger trapped in the red and white heart-patterned Egyptian cotton sheets. Rose's eyes shut in semi-embarrassment at the realization that she had not come downstairs to see her family in nearly four days. She gulped the bitter taste of remorse at hurting her baby brother for the hundredth time in so few days. _Yes, Tony, we'll play soon. No, Tony, not today_. Rose bit her lip; she sacrificed her brother's happiness and precious time in the vain hope of a reunion with the madman in a box.

But at least she helped save the multiverse, right?

Rose slammed her balled fists against the soft mattress, then again, and several times again. It wasn't fair; she kept her promise. Didn't that mean anything?

 _Does it need saying?_

Her amber eyes flashed predatorily. If she had been sure of the place in his life and hearts, then no, it wouldn't have _needed_ to be said. Yet domestics and any serious conversation about the elephant in the room were, like Captain Jack, unofficially banned from the TARDIS. The humiliated young woman shut her eyes a second time. She trusted him, she trusted _his rules_.

 _I thought you and me were… I obviously got it wrong. I've been to the year five billion, right, but this? Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you're going to do to me?_

 _No, not to you._

 _What a bloody liar_ , she hissed. He forgot about her the moment Donna inherited his mind and became the DoctorDonna, never mind that she had once absorbed all of time and space for _him_. It was Reinette and Sarah Jane Smith the third time over. Her first Doctor — big ears, black leather, and Salford accent — had never called attention to her lack of A-Levels; though it was _never said_ outright, her second Doctor clearly believed she was a stupid ape and inferior to his other companions. Rose sighed. Maybe he was right; after all, he had his choice of companions among French marquises, accomplished journalists, and medical doctors — why would he even consider staying with a subpar shopgirl from South London?

 _Is that why you came back? Because you felt like he owed you a human ending of happily ever after?_ demanded a voice suspiciously akin to her first doctor's.

Her lips turned up, but into a grimace. No; she honestly stayed because she loved him. She came back because she thought that he still needed her, because she made him a promise of forever in the TARDIS. Despite what he and her mum apparently believed, she never wanted the beans-on-toast British life. Beans-on-toast meant returning to the shops and living an unremarkable life with an equally unremarkable husband and children. Rose had left in the TARDIS precisely because it was her _only second chance_ at escaping the Powell Estate and changing nappies at twenty-one. As she once told her second Doctor underneath a black hole a billion light years from _her_ Earth, if they _had to_ take out a mortgage, they could do it together. But it was far from her idea of a happy life.

 _I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want._

 _But he's not you._

What of her third Doctor? Perhaps he had changed _just enough._

 _Don't go down that road, Tyler_ , she admonished herself. Though her three doctors were all the Doctor, they weren't the same man. Rose knew that better than anyone, having been with all three. Big Ears wore his feelings like his black leather — perceptible, wounded, yet _hopeful_. Pinstripes was fit and had gorgeous hair, but hid his emotions behind the mask of mania, intelligence, and self-assured arrogance. Mickey first recognized the underlying insensitivity of the second Doctor, which Rose steadfastly denied. The Donna-Doctor was a hot-tempered, insecure version of the original who barely spoke to her, and like Pinstripes, would only admit to his feelings under extreme duress. But unlike his two predecessors and having observed many versions of Donna Noble's life, Rose instinctively knew that this Doctor wanted some imagined fairytale life with her, even though he was as emotionally aware as her kid brother.

 _And I'm him._

Rose sniffed dryly. What about her? Her own track record was less than exemplary; before the Doctor, with whom she had a more-than-friends-but-less-than-romantic relationship, she had been in two relationships, neither of which had been particularly healthy or mature. The safe, but dull Mickey's idea of teenage romance was a post-footie shag in his flat. Bored to tears and afraid of Jackie's wrath at her desire for more than a proper working-woman's life, she fell prey to the empty, charismatic words of Jimmy Stone, who turned his frustrations and fists on her weeks after becoming a power couple at school. Instead of the escape she so craved, Rose came back to the Powell Estate hundreds of pounds in debt, banned from senior school, jailed by her enraged mother, and ignored by her betrayed off-and-on boyfriend. She once again became a passive actor in her own life, waiting for the handsome prince to come and rescue her from the ordinary. The clarity of nearly ten years and a whole universe of experiences illuminated the painfully obvious: Rose Tyler had never been truly in love.

Then she met the Doctor, saw the _universe_ , made new mistakes, and _repeated old ones_. Rose became still at the last thought. With her first Doctor, she had changed for the better; she was less afraid, less judgmental, more eager for knowledge and education, and more willing to take action, even if that meant arguing with and defying him.

 _I create myself._

After her Northern Doctor's regeneration, Rose found herself tiptoeing on eggshells around the frenetic pretty boy. She lost the independence of mind and spirit and clung to the Doctor's every word and decision, even while he threw woman after woman in her face and rewarded her with verbal barb after barb. Then after the worst day of her life, Rose started to breathe again with a quantum-flux dimension cannon and the dimmest of hopes of returning to her universe and the Doctor. She would never admit it to anyone at the time, least of all herself, but there were days in which she thought more about the success of the cannon than about reaching the Doctor.

Three knocks at the white bedroom door startled her out of her reverie. Rose stared at the painted wood, silent in fear of the person on the other side. Certain that it wasn't Tony, for he'd just open the door or cry until she unlocked it, nor her mother, who would have begun to shout by now, Rose deduced that it was either her parallel father or the Donna-Doctor.

The buzz of the sonic screwdriver unlocking the door immediately answered her unspoken question. Before she could shout at him to leave her alone, the half-human Doctor walked in, pocketed the screwdriver, and closed the door, leaning against it to block her escape. He crossed his long, thin arms and quietly raised a chestnut-colored eyebrow.


	2. Too Little Too Late

**Chapter 2: Too Little Too Late**

Rose's face remained impassive, not betraying the glimmer of white-hot anger at the pit of her stomach. "What do you want?" she asked, her voice harsh from disuse.

He glared, then shrugged. "I came looking for an adventure. I knew I'd get one if Rose Tyler's bedroom has kept her for four days."

 _Bastard._ "Of course. After all, not all of us can have our own TARDIS," she replied blithely. The Briton wordlessly rejoiced at the renewed flicker of anger in the Time Lord's eyes.

"He's not coming back, Rose. He's left us both," he sneered. Rose shrugged in answer, which only enraged and encouraged him. At her continued silence, he continued, "Your family misses you, _I miss you!_ I — I don't know how to be human. I mean, thank goodness I've got a piece of the TARDIS. I don't know if I can grow it, but there's always hope. It might take a few years — six, by _our_ estimates — but it's worth it if it succeeds."

"And if it doesn't? Then what?" Rose asked quietly.

The Doctor flinched at Rose's not-so-innocent question. The haughty attitude with which he entered Rose's bedroom slipped into voiceless despair. "I don't know," he finally answered.

Rose shook her head. "I didn't think so. Doctor, see the problem is, you're a big, goddamned hypocrite."

The Doctor's eyes widened in shock at both the woman's profanity and directness. "What d—?"

"Shut it!" she hissed. "You have the absolute nerve to barge into _my_ personal space, so you're going to listen to me." At the Doctor's mouth audibly snapping shut, she went on, "You thought that beans and toast was good 'nough for us _stupid apes_ that you trapped me and you in a so-called 'normal life' that neither of us ever wanted, least of all _you,_ only you gave _yourself_ a nice little exit plan. Should you grow the TARDIS, you'd fuck off faster than light speed! But you bein' you, you managed to bollox it up!"

"That is rubbish!" he insisted. "I meant what I said, I didn't want you to lose your family!"

"Bullshit," interrupted Rose. "You were looking for ways to get rid of me since New Earth — the second time. You said you wouldn't leave me behind, but you did. Hell, you were fully prepared to leave me an' Mickey on a fifty-first century spaceship, leavin' Mum to wonder what happened to us! Your excuse about my family is jus' another lie."

"You didn't seem to have a problem with abandoning your mum at the Wharf, let alone very recently!" the Doctor fired back. "I'm also not the one who's cryin' like a spoilt child in her room over a toy she didn't get for Christmas!"

"Oh excuse the living _fuck_ out of me for coming to terms with _reality!_ " she screamed. Like a wolf stalking her prey, she moved swiftly into his personal space, something they both noted that she had never done. "Here's another thought, _Doctor:_ I made _you_ a promise, one I discovered about three years into my time here that I could keep. I didn't come here of my own volition, I was _trapped here._ I was trapped here saving your bloody arse from the Void!"

Rose took a deep breath to calm herself, then continued in a softer tone. "Yes, I made the choice to leave Mum, but you seem to be clueless as to why. At Canary Wharf, there was _no one else_ who could watch your back, Doctor. Contrary to what you might think, you _can die._ I watched it happen once, remember? Yeah, you can regenerate, but you're not a Highlander, neither. Remember what you told me at Number Ten? If you don't dare, everyone dies. If _you die_ , then the universe loses. We _all_ lose."

"And the Crucible? What about that?" he asked angrily.

Rose raised her eyebrow. "Are you telling me that you knew about Davros before I found Donna in that parallel world? Before Jack and the others?" At his silence, she added, "No, you didn't. Yeah, I had a choice to do something or sit back like everyone else and wait for the end. I did what _you_ would have done, Doctor."

"Yeah, and that's the bloody problem!" the half-alien exploded. "I've turned my friends — _you_ — into weapons! Davros was right; you would have all died before I did the right thing and flipped the switch on those blasted metal octopuses! Can you imagine that, watching everyone you've _ever loved_ die?!"

"Yes, I can, you self-absorbed arsehole!" Rose yelled, her body shaking with months' worth of rage and ice. "In that parallel world, not only did I watch UNIT drag _your body_ from the Thames, but I saw Earth nuked and destroyed about six or seven different ways, and millions die from starvation, war, suicide, and disease! I watched my Mum get shot in the street by a twelve-year-old looking for money and food. And there was _nothing_ I could do about it! Then I had to send Donna to her death to save the multiverse and pray that everythin' would be the same once she died! That was _one_ world."

At Rose's declaration, the Doctor, who was breathing harshly out of anger, disbelief, and shame, stared at his ex-companion.

"What?!" she shrieked.

"You're crying," he said simply.

Rose wiped furiously at her pink and yellow face and gasped at het salty, wet, right hand. She sniffed and once again wiped at her eyes and mouth. "I thought I had no more to give," she whispered.

"One of the mysteries of the human race," murmured the Doctor, as he gently, but firmly pulled her into his arms. Though she did not welcome the gesture, Rose did not push away, instead gazing distantly into the far white walls of her bedroom. He rested his chin atop her medium-length, oily blonde hair. "Rose, I won't ever apologize for saving you or your mum. Hate me for that as you will. I don't regret killing those _things_ , either. I don't give a damn if that makes me genocidal. Gallifreyan pacifism be damned for eternity. However, I do regret how the _other me_ treated you on that blasted beach. I've always known that I was a bloody git — I mean, I've run into my other selves multiple times and hated every moment of it —but I never realized the extent of my god complex until then. Must be the Donna in me." The Donna-Doctor looked down at his former companion, whose right side of her mouth had ghosted a smirk.

"Was that a smile?" he inquired lightheartedly.

"No," she lied.

"That was a smile," insisted the Doctor. Abruptly, his own victorious smirk changed into a tortured grimace. "There's something else I regret. Donna's gone."

Rose maneuvered to look up at him. "What do you mean? She's in TARDIS with the previous you."

He shook his head. "No. After they left us, he would certainly have purged her mind. There's never been a Time Lord-Human Metacrisis before and with good reason. Whereas I was 'born' into this body, the Metacrisis imprinted itself in a thirty-something human mind. It's like a transplant gone horribly wrong. I'm stable, but she wouldn't have been able to handle infinite knowledge. She's gone. She'll survive, but she won't remember us."

The young woman gasped in horror, backing away from the half-human Time Lord. "But she was so _happy_ that she was the Doctor-Donna. I can't imagine that she'd have let him do it."

Dropping his head to avoid her penetrating gaze, he whispered, "No, she wouldn't've."

The anger that had been slowly dissipating started to burn again in Rose's stomach. "So, he used her to make _you,_ let you do the dirty work of destroyin' the Daleks, got rid of the evidence in a parallel world, purged her memories without her consent, and left her to rot somewhere? And you _knew_ about this, but didn't try to stop him?!"

"There was no _choice,_ Rose!" he shouted, lifting his head to face her. "If Gallifrey existed, then yes, I could have reversed the process and Donna'd still be Donna. But Gallifrey's gone. And Donna was _not left to rot_! I know him better than anyone, 'cause I _was him_ , so I know Donna ended up with her mum and granddad, where she would have wanted to be!"

"Answer me this," said Rose coldly, "did he actually give her a choice?" A sickening feeling infected her core as she regarded the Doctor's guilty expression. She nodded stormily. "He did not. Would _you_ have?"

The guilty expression had not changed, though his voice managed to crack a raspy, "Yes."

"Then why didn't you stay to give her that choice?" she asked.

The Doctor turned away from her, obscuring his face with both of his long, thin hands. Rose crossed her arms impatiently behind him. After several moments of listening to his rapid, heavy breathing, she shook her head. "I'm going to take a bath and forget about Time Lord head games for a while. I've reached my limit." As she moved toward the en-suite, a hand latched onto her petite wrist, pulling her toward the waiting, six-foot-tall Time Lord. Rose resisted crossly, pushing at his grip until he seized her other hand, shaking it faintly to encourage surrender. A moment later, the smaller woman became still.

"Because Donna asked me not to," he finally said. "Rose…" he began, sighing. "You didn't…You weren't there in the days following Canary Wharf. I wasn't…Let's just say I didn't give a shit whether I lived or died. In my grief over…losing you, I…I almost made a terrible mistake. Donna saw it. She knew how much I missed you."

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you," replied Rose. "You've already lost so much. But I don't understand how that…"

Putting an index finger to her lips, he responded, "She knew that leaving _me_ here was my only chance at getting what I _really_ wanted, which was _you_. She loved me like a sister and she wanted me to be happy. The _other me_ never would have allowed any of us to be happy. He's a spiteful, selfish old man, Rose."

"Yet _you were him_ , Doctor!" she interjected, breaking away from his grip. "On some level, you would have made the same decisions! I mean, you would and wouldn't have. How…How do I know who _you really are_? I fell in love with that spiteful, selfish old man, at least I think I did."

The half-alien blinked in surprise and fear at the woman's remarks. "What do you mean, you _think_?" he hissed.

She froze, realizing that she had voiced a deeply-buried, reoccurring thought that she had since the fifty-first century and encountering Madame de Pompadour. _In for a penny, in for a pound_ , her mother always said. Inhaling and summoning all of her courage as the Defender of the Multiverse, Rose replied, "I've always been attracted to _bad boys,_ blokes who were all sorts of trouble. Mum even called me a _bum magnet._ There was Mickey, who you already know. But there was also Jimmy Stone. Mickey was safe, but more like a brother to me. Jimmy promised me a life outside the Estate. In the end, all's I got was bruises and debt. I thought I was in love with him. But in truth, I just wanted out of my life and didn't care much how I did it. When I met you, it was different; I knew what to expect from you and while we messed around and had a good time doin' it, I never thought we'd end up as a proper couple. You were a 900-year-old alien, for Chrissake! Yeah, the thought of us givin' it a go had come to mind once or twice. Then you changed and …. so did I. You started payin' me more attention and I thought I was the luckiest human in the universe 'cause _someone important wanted me, because you wanted me_. But then you pushed me away and constantly made me second-guess m'self, like Jimmy all over again. I didn't always like the person you became, Doctor. Now I know my gut was right, even for a _stupid ape_ like me. I was in love with you once, but I can't love the person who left me, you, and Mum on that beach, without a care about Donna, either."

As she finished her last sentence, she observed the Donna-Doctor chew his lip bitterly in an attempt to hide the stinging rejection he discerned in her words. "I don't know what to say," he managed to growl. "I always treated you with respect, so much so that I put distance between us to protect _you_. _You_ came first, even before _my_ happiness."

She did not bother to wipe away the single tear that had escaped her left eye. "I wish I could believe that, Doctor. But I don't. You pushed me away because you were afraid an _us_ would make you less Time Lord, which was more important to you than making either of us better. You certainly had no issues with entertaining Madame de Pompadour or even Jabe. I don't know why, maybe 'cause they reminded you of your people. Whatever it was, it wasn't me. Like Mickey, like Jimmy, I don't think you ever really _saw_ me."

"Rose," he began, but she cut him off by taking his hand, squeezing it faintly within hers.

"Doctor, I believe you love me on some level. But I don't deserve to be in second place or the fall back girl 'cause you're scared. I give you my hand and my time — freely. If I choose to be in a relationship with someone again, I want to trust that I can lean on them as much as they lean on me. Most importantly, I think I want someone who allows me to be who I am, and not who they'd expect or want me to be, or decide that for me. They'll take a chance on Rose Tyler as _she is._ "

"And you don't think I can be that man?" the Doctor spoke softly.

"Maybe for someone else," she replied tearfully.

"But you kissed me!" he cried. "Surely that meant something?"

She nodded. "It did, it _does_. But Doctor, that's the thing: I kissed _you,_ I told you that I loved you. You've never kissed me or told me that you loved me without being forced or retreating in some way. That's very you — the Doctor who runs. I don't want to be loved because you think you have to or I'm your only connection to the other universe. 'S not fair to either of us, especially if you do get the TARDIS runnin' again."

"That's…That's not…!"

Exhaling resignedly, Rose backed away from the Doctor and moved toward the en-suite. "Doctor, I don't wanna keep goin' 'round in circles with you. I really want that bath and I need time to myself now. You can let yourself out, please."

Stiffening her posture, Rose Tyler entered her large en-suite and locked the door behind her. The Doctor reached into his larger-on-the-inside pockets and brushed his fingers against the sonic screwdriver. He was tempted to fish out the device and open the door again, revealing a surprised, naked Rose whom he'd show just how in love he really was. Reluctantly, the Doctor forced himself away from the closed en-suite and out the main bedroom door. She was wrong, _so wrong,_ about _his_ feelings, yet she wasn't _entirely_ wrong about _the other him_. His previous incarnation was _a right skinny, dumbo arseclown_ who lacked empathy toward those closest to him, mainly because he felt that he didn't deserve _their empathy_. In his desire to prove how unworthy he was, the previous Doctor took masochism to new depths and transitioned into a sadist, hurting the very people who had made him a part of their lives — Rose, Martha, Donna, Jack, Mickey, Sarah Jane, even Reinette.

 _No second chances; I'm that sort of a man._

Did he even deserve a second chance?

 _Maybe for someone else_ , echoed his Rose's voice.

He sank to the wooden corridor floor and let the heaving sobs pour from his single heart.


	3. Sarah Jane

Author's notes: I like Sarah Jane, particularly with the Third Doctor, so please don't take this as bashing. However, I hated how she was written in "School Reunion" and "Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End." This is my attempt to explain why and how adult Rose deals with the misguided advice SJ gave her.

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 **Chapter 3: Sarah Jane**

Hours after her argument with the Doctor and the lavender-scented bubble bath that followed, Rose laid on her bed, looking absently at the ceiling and reminiscing on the previous week's events. Though her heart still ached dully in her petite frame, the pain abated to the post-injury lull that, with several weeks' time, would leave a healed scar.

 _Three and out_ , she thought sadly.

It still hurt to think of the Doctor and the end of the road together. Intellectually, Rose knew that she did everything she could to keep her promise to the alien, but letting him go was inevitable. _You can't fix someone if they don't wanna fix 'emselves!_ Jackie once yelled during a fight over Jimmy Stone. The twenty-something Rose recognized the wisdom that her teenaged self willfully ignored and the Doctor was too emotionally unaware to understand — everyone has a choice.

 _What do I do? Do I stay with him?_

 _Yes. Some things are worth getting your heart broken for. Find me, if you need to, one day. Find me._

Years after encountering the Doctor's former companion and close-but-not-romantic friend, Rose was still ashamed at her initial, petty reaction to the elder woman. The Doctor had been travelling long before her _great-grandparents_ were born, so of course he had other companions. No, she shook her head silently, that actually hadn't bothered her; it was the fear of meaning much less to him than other companions like Sarah Jane.

If she had a time machine and could avoid the Reapers, Rose would first transport the younger Sarah Jane back to Croydon and then tell her younger self who she was to the Doctor. Then she froze at her epiphany; like Sarah Jane's invitation post-Doctor, she was trying to fix _his mistakes._ For all of his so-called superior brilliance, the Doctor apparently couldn't handle a simple, _three-dimensional problem_ like the exact location of the London Borough commonly known as Croydon. If that was not bad enough, six lives had passed before he even thought of looking in after her.

 _Six lives. Six._

 _Like six words._

At the school, Rose had felt jealousy and pity at the poor woman's predicament; on the Crucible, she felt awe at what she had accomplished in short time and without the Doctor's help; in her moonlit bedroom, she felt betrayal and anger at the former companion. Sarah Jane asked a naive, teenage girl to enable the Doctor's behavior. In the six lives between Rose and Sarah Jane, with the Time Wars predating the former but not the latter, certain personality traits remained with every incarnation: on one hand, brilliance, curiosity, a thirst for adventure, and a moral compass; on the other, arrogance, a lack of empathy, manipulative behavior, and an inability to take responsibility for his own actions. Like other beings in the universe whom the Gallifreyan had saved countless times, Sarah Jane willingly overlooked the troubling character flaws in the hope of serving a noble cause, of being _something more_.

 _Sound familiar, Tyler?_ echoed Shareen's voice.

 _We weren't really fixing him,_ the blonde realized, _we were fixing ourselves_. Pushing back the covers, she slid out from bed and went to the window across the room, the silver moonlight reflecting against her navy blue satin chemise. None of the Doctor's companions — not even Jack — were remotely the same people they had been at the beginning of their journeys with him. They changed mentally and emotionally while the Doctor remained the same, except when he was alone. Like Donna, Rose instinctively knew that the Doctor alone was the most dangerous entity in the entire universe. Recalling the Duplicate Doctor's revelation about Donna, she shivered in fear, trepidation, and the guilt at having left countless beings to the brown-suited Doctor's lack of mercy and inability to see himself.

Did Sarah Jane know that? Did she believe that sacrificing the hearts of a handful of companions — assistants — to protect the Doctor from the darker parts of his psyche was really the right thing to do?

 _When the 'ell would himself start doin' the right 'ing?_ enjoined Jackie's voice.

Rose smiled in agreement with her mum. A week ago, she never would have believed it, but perhaps being a _former companion_ was a blessing in disguise. No one should be shouldered with the terrible responsibility of controlling the mental state of such a powerful being.

 _What do I do post-Doctor?_

She had spent roughly one-fifth of her life dedicated to a millennia-old alien whose memories of her would no doubt fade in a few decades. Most people, Sarah Jane included, would have expected her to give into self-pity and a lifeless existence. In the six months following Bad Wolf Bay _(the first time),_ Rose did just that — she slept more than she ate or spoke and dreamt of _her_ Doctor and the TARDIS. She dreamt of hopping for her life with her first Doctor, Cassandra, the Slitheen, New Earth, and even of Mickey and Sarah Jane, then again like an endless loop. By the end of the sixth month, Rose grew bored of the same adventures and painfully realized that she had to leave the Doctor behind to make new ones. She accepted Pete Tyler's long-standing invitation to join Torchwood and, within three years, was promoted to senior agent under her new best friend, Jake Simmonds. At the end of her second year in Pete's World, she took her A-Levels in History, French, and Politics, and received all A and A* grades.

Rose knew that as the daughter of the wealthiest man in Great Britain, Oxford, Cambridge, and St. Andrews would welcome her with open arms if she were to apply for admittance. Working for Number Ten as a Torchwood attaché was also a possibility given her recent work saving their world from annihilation. For the past several months, however, she had started getting restless in the comforts of her parallel father's mansion and the confines of Greater London. There _was_ a whole world to explore and she never did use her passport, she reasoned. Money was no longer an issue; between her inheritance and the generous Torchwood salary that she had barely spent, Rose was herself a millionaire and could feasibly spend years abroad.

What was keeping her? Her mission to save the Multiverse was complete, the Doctor had left her, and Jake was more than capable of running Torchwood for her father.

 _Her mum and brother. She'd be leaving them again._

Rose sighed. As much as she loved and remained close to her family, she and Jackie rarely saw eye-to-eye anymore, and her brother was too young to share much in common with his adult sister. While Jackie lived up the good life in this universe as wife and hostess to the richest man in Britain, Rose dedicated every moment of the past three years to the cannon. Her mum had assimilated; she steadfastly refused. One week after the final trip to Norway and retroclosure, she was exiled to a universe in which Rose Marion Tyler hadn't existed prior to 20.9.

 _Keep calm and carry on; no-self pity, Tyler._ She _owed it to_ her mother, brother, and father to find herself, otherwise there would be no peace between them.

As Rose pivoted back to bed, she caught the semi-obscure shape of a man standing listlessly on the damp lawn below her window. She approached the glass cautiously to get a better glimpse at the intruder. The lights below revealed the _new new new_ Doctor, who was dressed in nothing but black satin pants and whose wild brown hair was damp from a recent shower. His bare back was turned to her and his head tilted up toward the upside-down W shape of Cassiopeia's throne.


End file.
